Nepal starts at 1,400 m.
Which Everest trip walks to Base Camp and which one lands for twenty minutes. What fourteen days on the trail buys that a helicopter cannot. What a momo class off Thamel actually costs. Every tour in Nepal, reviewed.
Every Nepal trek is an altitude, not a distance.
All treks and hikes →The day count is the acclimatisation. Here is where each route tops out, how long the walk usually takes, and how many of each we have reviewed.
Above about 3,000 m the working rule is 300 to 500 metres of sleeping altitude gained a day, with a rest day every third or fourth. Altitude sickness kills trekkers in Nepal every season and it does not care how fit anyone is. A short itinerary at these heights is a shorter acclimatisation, not a better deal.
Kathmandu’s UNESCO day leads Nepal’s booking list.
Every review →A full day around seven monuments in the Kathmandu Valley sits at the top. The rest runs from a momo kitchen off Thamel to a helicopter with a landing slot at 3,880 m.
1
Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
14-day Everest Base Camp trek from Kathmandu with a small-group guide, Lukla flight logistics, Sherpa villages, Kala Pattar views, and porter support.
From · $1,800
Read our review →
2
Everest Base Camp Trek
from $1,790
3
Private Kathmandu Sightseeing Tour | UNESCO World Heritage sites
4
7 UNESCO Sites with Lunch
5
Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotel
from $1,575
6
ZipFlyer Nepal – The World’s Steepest Zip-line
from $165
7
Half day cooking class in Thamel kathmandu
8
Everest Base Camp Trekking
from $1,350
9
Nagarkot Sunrise View and Day Hiking from Kathmandu
In Nepal, the price is mostly the day count.
A Kathmandu day out and a fortnight above 5,000 m sit on the same ladder, and almost all of the difference is nights on the trail.
Full days out of the valley: the seven UNESCO monuments with lunch, Nagarkot for sunrise, a momo kitchen, the cable car up Chandragiri.
Short treks and overnights. Ghorepani and Poon Hill in three to five days, Mardi Himal in four, Chitwan by jeep and dugout canoe with a night in the park.
The long walks that need a guide and permits: Annapurna Base Camp, the Circuit over Thorong La, Langtang out of Syabrubesi.
- 1Annapurna base camp trek 5 Daysfrom $699
- 2Langtang Valley Trekfrom $555
- 3Ghorepani – Poon Hill Trek 3N-4Dfrom $321
Everest Base Camp at a full sixteen days, the Manaslu and Kanchenjunga circuits, Upper Mustang, and the helicopter mornings that carry a landing slot.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Daysfrom $1,800
- 2Everest Base Camp Trekfrom $1,790
- 3Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotelfrom $1,575
Pashupatinath and Boudhanath are not monuments.
Both are in daily use. Pashupatinath is a Hindu cremation ground on the Bagmati where families hold funerals every day of the year, and the ghats are not a viewing gallery: non-Hindus cannot enter the main temple, and the right thing to do at the river is put the camera down. Boudhanath is a Tibetan Buddhist stupa with people walking its circuit in prayer from before first light. Go clockwise, dress as you would for someone else’s funeral, and the rest takes care of itself.
PashupatinathA Hindu temple complex and working cremation ground on the Bagmati river.BoudhanathOne of the largest stupas anywhere, and the centre of Tibetan Kathmandu.
SwayambhunathThe hilltop stupa above the city. Parts of it came down in 2015 and have been repaired since.
Changu NarayanThe oldest temple in the valley, badly damaged in the earthquake and rebuilt.
NamobuddhaA working monastery on the ridge beyond Dhulikhel, with a long lunch in most day tours.
MuktinathA pilgrimage site at 3,800 m in Mustang, sacred to Hindus and Buddhists alike. 
Pokhara: 822 m, a lake, and the Annapurnas on the skyline.
Sarangkot at 1,600 m is the sunrise everyone sets an alarm for — Machhapuchhre and the Annapurnas turning gold from a ridge half an hour above the water. Paragliders launch off the same hill once the thermals build, the zip-line drops six hundred metres towards the valley floor, and the trail-heads for Poon Hill and Mardi Himal are an hour out of town.
- 1ZipFlyer Nepal – The World’s Steepest Zip-linefrom $165
- 2Bungee Pokhara by HighGround Adventuresfrom $90
- 3Sarangkot Sunrise Himalayas Tour
Everest: the walk, the flight, and the landing.
Everest is sold out of Kathmandu three different ways, at three very different altitudes and three very different prices. They answer different questions and they are not substitutes for one another.
Twelve to sixteen days to 5,364 m
Fly into Lukla, walk up the Khumbu, reach Base Camp around day eight. The days you are not climbing are the ones doing the work: the rest days at Namche and Dingboche exist for a medical reason, and a shorter version of the same route is a shorter acclimatisation.
See all 145 →
One hour along the range, nothing lands
A small aircraft leaves Kathmandu at first light, flies the length of the range and turns back. Everyone gets a window seat and nobody gains altitude. It is also the first thing cancelled when cloud sits over the valley, which through the summer is most mornings.
See all 25 →Everest View and Kala Patthar in a morning
The quickest way to stand near Everest and the least acclimatised thing on this site: a helicopter can put a passenger above 5,000 m within two hours of a hotel at 1,400 m. Operators keep the stops to minutes for exactly that reason, and weather turns these around more often than any other Everest booking.
See all 18 →Bhaktapur and Patan were rebuilt, and it shows.
The Gorkha earthquake of April 2015 brought down temples across all three Durbar Squares. Most of what stands today is reconstruction finished between 2017 and 2024 — Kasthamandap, the timber pavilion that gave Kathmandu its name, reopened in 2022 after seven years of rebuilding by carpenters working the original joinery. The craft is the reason to go slowly.
All 36 Bhaktapur tours →
Kathmandu kitchens, Pokhara water, Chitwan grass.
The half of Nepal that never leaves the valley floor: momo dough, the Seti in flood, jungle mornings on the Rapti, a cable car to a ridge with the whole range behind it.
Chitwan is the national park Nepal can actually show you.
Lowland Terai, six hours south of Kathmandu and about 150 metres above the sea, which is the entire point after a week in the hills. Mornings go out by jeep, by dugout canoe on the Rapti, or on foot behind two guides. Greater one-horned rhino are the dependable sighting; tiger is luck. None of the safaris below ride elephants.
- 1Jungle Towernight Stay In Chitwan National Park ,nepal-2 Nights 3 Days Packagefrom $225
- 23-Day Chitwan National Park Jungle Safari Tour Package with Pick Upfrom $180
- 33-Day All-Inclusive Chitwan Safari
Nepal has two clear-air seasons and the Everest flights obey them.
October and November are the settled months: dry air, long views, full teahouses. March and April are the second window — warmer, hazier, rhododendron in flower along the Poon Hill and Langtang ridges. June to September is the monsoon: the hills are green and cheap, the leeches are out, and mountain flights and helicopters cancel more often than they fly. Winter is sharp and very cold, the high passes shut, and the valley rim gives the clearest views of the year.
By base — where you sleep
Kathmandu Valley874 tours
Pokhara301 tours
Chitwan13 tours
Everest Region7 tours- Every review →
The newest reviews from Kathmandu, Pokhara and the trails.
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